A generally known double door for an opening of a vehicle body (e.g., an opening of a vehicle cabin or a luggage compartment) includes a first-closing door closed first, and a second-closing door closed later.
For example, as Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2011-219052 discloses, this type of vehicle includes a body-side seal, a side-edge seal, and a second-closing seal. The body-side seal is provided along the periphery of an opening of a vehicle body, and protrudes outside the vehicle. The side-edge seal extends vertically along the front side edge of a first-closing door, and protrudes outside the vehicle. The second-closing seal is provided along the periphery of a second-closing door, and protrudes inside the vehicle.
When the first-closing door is closed, the inner surface of the first-closing door abuts on the body-side seal. As viewed from the outer surface of the vehicle body, the side-edge seal of the first-closing door and the remaining portion of the body-side seal form a frame-like sealing means for the periphery of the second-closing door. When the second-closing door is closed, the periphery of the inner surface of the second-closing door abuts on the frame-like sealing means. On the other hand, the second-closing seal abuts on the outer surface around the opening of the vehicle body and the outer surface of the first-closing door outside the frame-like sealing means.
In this case, the inner surface of the second-closing door abuts and runs on the side-edge seal of the first-closing door from the body-side seal. The second-closing seal of the second-closing door runs once on the side-edge seal from the outer surface of the vehicle body and abuts on the outer surface of the first-closing door. Japanese Patent No. 4930788 discloses providing a lip for a seal of a first-closing door at a lower end on a side edge of the first-closing door to improve sealing performance at the portion of a seal of a second-closing door running on the seal of the first-closing door from the outer surface of a vehicle body. This lip overlaps the outer surface of the vehicle body outside the vehicle. When the second-closing door is closed, the seal of the second-closing door runs on the seal of the first-closing door from the lip.
On the other hand, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2011-219052 discloses guiding water, which has entered a hollow seal portion of a weatherstrip from the upper part of the hollow seal portion, inside the first-closing door (the gap between inner and outer panels) from the lower end of the hollow seal portion. The hollow seal portion extends vertically along the overlap between the first-closing door and a second-closing door. A slit for taking out a core is cut in a portion molded in a mold above the hollow seal portion. The water enters the hollow seal portion through the slit.
In order to improve sealing performance at the portion of the second-closing seal running on the side-edge seal from the outer surface of the vehicle body at the upper side-edge corner of the first-closing door, an upper edge of the side-edge seal preferably has a seal-side fin of which thickness gradually decreases toward the second-closing door. That is, the second-closing seal runs on the body of the side-edge seal from the seal-side fin.
However, assume that an inner-side fin is provided at the portion of the inner surface of the second-closing door running on the side-edge seal from the body-side seal at the upper side-edge corner of the first-closing door, and this inner-side fin extends from the side-edge seal toward the second-closing door to be a single continuous piece with the seal-side fin. If the inner surface of the second-closing door runs on the side-edge seal from this inner-side fin, the sealing performance of the inner-side fin and the seal-side fin, which continuously extends from the inner-side fin, may be badly influenced.
Specifically, when the second-closing door is closed, the body-side seal and the inner-side fin overlapping the body-side seal, are pressed and deformed by the inner surface of the second-closing door. The seal-side fin is deformed or displaced by the deformation of the inner-side fin. The body-side seal is not always deformed in the same manner when the second-closing door is closed. Thus, the inner-side fin is also deformed differently, and accordingly, the position or the condition of the seal-side fin may often change. As such, if the abutting state of the seal-side fin on the outer surface of the body changes according to the deformation of the inner-side fin, the sealing performance of the second-closing seal at the door by is badly influenced.
At the portion of the above-described second-closing seal running on the side-edge seal from the outer surface of the vehicle body, a small gap is formed between the second-closing seal and the outer surface of the vehicle body. Thus, if a vehicle is in long rain or in strong wash water, water may leak into the vehicle through the small gap.
To address the problem, it is conceivable to guide leaking water inside a door by using a hollow seal portion of a weatherstrip as described in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2011-219052. However, in this case, a flange connecting inner and outer panels at the lower end of the door is wet by the water. Since this flange is hardly coated, the wet tends to cause rusting.